Infographic: the evolution of digital comics in the US

This infographic is also an ad for WEBTOONS, a portal short serialized digital comics that are native on mobile platforms. The site is run by NAVER, the Google of South Korea. Despite the proprietary nature there is still some interesting info on the graph including projected worldwide size of the digital comics market...no idea where that came from, but webtoons are an established entertainment format in South Korea, seemingly more than in the US.

This infographic is also an ad for WEBTOONS, a portal short serialized digital comics that are native on mobile platforms. The site is run by NAVER, the Google of South Korea. Despite the proprietary nature there is still some interesting info on the graph including projected worldwide size of the digital comics market…no idea where that came from, but webtoons are an established entertainment format in South Korea, seemingly more than in the US.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

The forecast for the US comic market in that infographic shows a shrinking print market from 2012 onwards. Since 2013 actually saw an fairly big increase from 2012, and 2014 so far is almost completely neck and neck with 2013 (marginally lower unit sales, higher dollar sale). I think the projections in that chart is a bit on the wrong side, especially since it projects fairly big declines from 2012 onwards. Yay print!

I don’t have access to the ICV2 white paper numbers, which covers the entire print market, not just comics shops.

The Direct Market is a sliver of the Book Market, either internationally or domestically.

My feeling is that the market is growing. Librarians are eager for new titles. Every Big Six publisher now has at least one comics imprint (Penguin finally is ramping up production). And I believe BookScan is showing a large increase in GN sales. (They survey normal retail channels, covering about 70% of bookstores.)